Waveplace Blog : June 2008

Today in Immokalee Florida, Waveplace started its third XO and Etoys pilot. We gave laptops to 43 children, and I taught them for two hours. We also started our first intensive teacher training workshop with our new beta courseware. This week, I'm teaching adults five days, six hours a day, in addition to three student classes. The teachers will then spend the remaining nine weeks teaching the students themselves after I leave. Let's just say that between the teacher training and the children training, and the endless logistics (setting up the projector, arranging the chairs, unpacking the XOs, recording the...

(from newsletter) As I write this, I'm flying home from our first Waveplace mentoring workshop, held in Immokalee, Florida. Over the last five long days, I taught our new Squeaky Tales course to a class of eight adults, most of them teachers. The week was enlightening and exhausting! We also started our third Waveplace pilot with a whopping 42 fourth graders, each of whom received their very own XO laptop. I led the class with a projector and microphone while the eight mentors worked with smaller groups. The kids were absolutely incredible: well-behaved, motivated, engaged. The mentors were equally amazing,...

In attendance: Christa, Katey, Jane, Mary V., Ted, Russell, Nicole Monday was our first day without our new Waveplace friends. We used the day to review LESSONS 5 & 6 because we knew that the kids would need a refresher from the week before. We set up the room in 4 U-shaped table teams with the projector Jane & Ted brought facing the back wall.  The Bethel projector is still broken, but everything worked out after the lightning slowed down!  In the beginning we had to restart the projector & computer between 10 and 15 times which slowed our start...

Waveplace has finished its beta "Squeaky Tales" courseware ... 30 lessons (with videos) that teach how to teach Etoys on the XO. To see examples, or to become a beta tester, visit here We took everything we learned in our first pilot (in the Virgin Islands) and started completely over. The pacing is much better, as is the storytelling component, which was crucial in St John. We're using the beta courseware in our three pilots this summer, and will then start completely over and make a physical textbook and DVD series (in English, Spanish, and French). All will be sold...

In attendance: Christa, Katey, Mary V., Donna, Jane and Teddy The Bethel projector is still broken so we set up the room in 4 U-shaped table teams with the projector we brought facing the back wall. Although Christa and I brought extra power cords, it didn't seem to be an issue because we are now having all the "forgot to charge kids" sit at one table.  Hopefully, this will encourage them to remember to charge. I did lessons 7, 8 and 9 today.  The students seemed to do well.  Mary will teach 10 and 11 on Thursday. One super helpful...

(notes by Susan) In attendance: Christa, Mary, Jane, Katey, Susan, Donna, Russell Squeak Day 6 for kids. Day 8 for adults. Here's to keeping just ahead of the kids! I thoroughly enjoyed joining the group for the lesson. My goal is to be available at least once a week and more often if my day job permits or if someone can't make it. The increase in the skills of the kids was quite noticeable after being away for two lessons. I am sure it is harder for Christa, Jane and Mary to see this but I did! We began with...

In Attendance: Christa, Jane, Katey, Mary Today went well!  Behavior & understanding is getting better each session. We started off with the Starfish Challenge homework sharing:  They could share any progress they made over the weekend. We worked on Lesson 10 & reviewed writing scripts. Discuss why we are here. I gave a little motivational speech about how they were chosen for the pilot. Students picked a student from their team to share what they accomplished over the weekend. We discussed procedures, rules, and troubleshooting computer problems. Reviewed naming sketches Created multiple characters for a race.  We chose to...

(notes by Jane) In Attendance: Christa, Katey, Mary, Russell, Jane Hats off to Christa! She did a great job last class, reviewing scripts, naming sketches, etc. Then she also covered new material from Lesson 10. Although she did a great job, most of the kids I worked with didn't seem to grasp all of it. Therefore, I did a lot of reviewing: duplicating, repainting, renaming sketches, making scripts to race the sketches, using the random tile. I also emphasized the importance of naming sketches and scripts. Because this was a review, I knew some kids would be bored, so I...

Just heard the two-part NPR story on Waveplace's XO and Etoys pilot in Immokalee, Florida. Have a listen here. Pretty surreal hearing myself on national radio. I'm a bit disappointed that Etoys got characterized as clumsy ... the alligator thing was from one of our advanced lessons for the adults. I imagine someone watching a person learn guitar for the first time would also think it clumsy. Great quotes from Christa and Susan. Photos from the pilot are here. Video is here....

(notes by Mary Villa) Lesson 10- Naming Sketches, Starting Scripts We went over this lesson by showing the children a script and naming it. We discuss about how important it is to name each script because later it will get confusing. If you name your script it won't get so confusing because each day the story gets longer and you are adding more and more scripts. We also discussed about the all scripts panel. It was very useful for the children. We allowed the children to work on their story and trouble shoot and we walked around helping where needed....